The Great Infidel, as he was known everywhere in the last half of the 19th century, was often called upon to speak at funerals – no better occasion to reflect on the greatest mysteries of life. And no one could do it better. He said no one knew or could know whether there was a life after death; but he was absolutely certain that if there were, the notion of eternal punishment for anyone was an ghastly priest-made libel upon a “loving and merciful” God. In some of these tributes he shows signs of hope for an afterlife -- the source being a longing to one day be reunited with those we have loved and who have loved us. -- Compiled by Julian W. Haydon.

(1) Without assurance, and without fear, we give him back to Nature, the source and mother of us all.

(2) While yet in love with life and raptured with the world, he passed to silence and pathetic dust.

Yet, after all, it may be best, just in the happiest, sunniest hour of all the voyage, while eager winds are kissing every sail, to dash against the unseen rock, and in an instant hear the billows roar above a sunken ship.

For whether in mid-sea or ‘mong the breakers of the farther shore, a wreck at last must mark the end of each and all.

And every life, no matter if its every hour is rich with love and every moment jeweled with a joy, will, at its close, become a tragedy as sad and deep and dark as can be woven of the warp and woof of mystery and death.

Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights.

We cry aloud, and the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry. From the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead there comes no word; but in the night of death hope sees a star and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing.

(3) [At a child’s grave] I know how vain it is to gild a grief with words, and yet I wish to take from every grave its fear. Here in this world, where life and death are equal kings, all should be brave enough to meet what all the dead have met. The future has been filled with fear, stained and polluted by the heartless past. From the wondrous tree of life the buds and blossoms fall with ripened fruit, and in the common bed of earth, patriarchs and babes sleep side by side.

Why should we fear that which will come to all that is?

We cannot tell, we do not know, which is the greater blessing—life or death.

We cannot say that death is not a good. We do not know whether the grave is the end of this life, or the door of another, or whether the night here is not somewhere else a dawn.

Neither can we tell which is the more fortunate—the child dying in its mother’s arms, before its lips have learned to form a word, or he who journeys all the length of life’s uneven road, painfully taking the last slow steps with staff and crutch.

Every cradle asks us “Whence?” and every coffin “Whither?”

The poor barbarian, weeping above his dead, can answer these questions just as well as the robed priest of the most authentic creed. The tearful ignorance of the one, is as consoling as the learned and unmeaning words of the other. No man, standing where the horizon of a life has touched a grave, has any right to prophesy a future filled with pain and tears.

May be that death gives all there is of worth to life. If those we press and strain within our arms could never die, perhaps that love would wither from the earth. May be this common fate treads from out the paths between our hearts the weeds of selfishness and hate.

And I had rather live and love where death is king, than have eternal life where love is not. Another life is nought, unless we know and love again the ones who love us here.

They, who stand with breaking hearts around this little grave, need have no fear. The larger and the nobler faith in all that is, and is to be, tells us that death, even at its worst, is only perfect rest.

We know that through the common wants of life—the needs and duties of each hour—their grief will lessen day by day, until at last this grave will be to them a place of rest and peace—almost of joy.

There is for them this consolation: The dead do not suffer. If they live again, their lives will surely be as good as ours. We have no fear. We are all children of the same mother, and the same fate awaits us all. We, too, have our religion, and it is this: Help for the living—Hope for the dead.

(4) Again we are face to face with the great mystery that shrouds this world. We question, but there is no reply. Out on the wide waste seas, there drifts no spar. Over the desert of death the sphinx gazes forever, but never speaks.

All wish for happiness beyond this life. All hope to meet again the loved and lost. In every heart there grows this sacred flower. Immortality is a word that Hope through all the ages has been whispering to Love.

The miracle of thought we cannot understand. The mystery of life and death we cannot comprehend. This chaos called the world has never been explained. The golden bridge of life from gloom emerges, and on shadow rests. Beyond this we do not know.

Fate is speechless, destiny is dumb, and the secret of the future has never yet been told. We love; we wait; we hope. The more we love, the more we fear. Upon the tenderest heart the deepest shadows fall. All paths, whether filled with thorns or flowers, end here. Here success and failure are the same. The rag of Wretchedness and the purple robe of power all difference and distinction lose in this democracy of death. Character survives; goodness lives; love is immortal.

And yet to all a time may come when the fevered lips of life will long for the cool, delicious kiss of death—when tired of the dust and glare of day we all shall hear with joy the rustling garments of the night.

What can we say of death? What can we say of the dead?

Where they have gone, reason cannot go, and from thence revelation has not come. But let us believe that over the cradle Nature bends and smiles, and lovingly above the dead in benediction holds her outstretched hands.

(5) But [his heart] has ceased to beat, and the mysterious veil that hangs where sight and blindness are the same—the veil that revelation has not drawn aside—that science cannot lift, has fallen once again between the living and the dead.

And yet we hope and dream. May be the longing for another life is but the prophecy forever warm from Nature’s lips, that love, disguised as death, alone fulfills. We cannot tell. And yet perhaps this Hope is but an antic, following the fortunes of an uncrowned king, beguiling grief with jest and satisfying loss with pictured gain. We do not know.

But from the Christian’s cruel hell, and from his heaven more heartless still, the free and noble soul, if forced to choose, should loathing turn, and cling with rapture to the thought of endless sleep.

But this we know: good deeds are never childless. A noble life is never lost. A virtuous action does not die.

(6) Again we stand in the shadow of the great mystery—a shadow as deep and dark as when the tears of the first mother fell upon the pallid face of her lifeless babe—a mystery that has never yet been solved.

When the Angel of Death—the masked and voiceless—enters the door of home, there come with her all the daughters of Compassion, and of these Love and Hope remain forever.

(7) In the presence of death, the good man judges as he would be judged. He knows that men are only fragments—that the greatest walk in shadow, and that faults and failures mingle with the lives of all.

In the grave should be buried the prejudices and passions born of conflict. Charity should hold the scales in which are weighed the deeds of men. Peculiarities, traits born of locality and surroundings—these are but the dust of the race—these are accidents, drapery, clothes, fashions, that have nothing to do with the man except to hide his character. They are the clouds that cling to mountains. Time gives us clearer vision. That which was merely local fades away.

And as he lived he died. Proudly he entered the darkness—or the dawn—that we call death. Unshrinkingly he passed beyond our horizon, beyond the twilight’s purple hills, beyond the utmost reach of human harm or help—to that vast realm of silence or of joy where the innumerable dwell, and he has left with us his wealth of thought and deed—the memory of a brave, imperious, honest man, who bowed alone to death.

(8) The river of another life has reached the sea.

Again we are in the presence of that eternal peace that we call death.

If there be another world, another life beyond the shore of this,—if the great and good who died upon this orb are there,—then the noblest and the best, with eager hands, have welcomed him—the equal in honor, in generosity, of any one that ever passed beyond the veil.

Farewell! If this is the end, then you have left to us the sacred memory of a noble life. If this is not the end, there is no world in which you, my friend, will not be loved and welcomed. Farewell!

(9) He knew that the end was near. He knew that his work was done. He stood within the twilight, within the deepening gloom, knowing that for the last time the gold was fading from the West and that there could not fall again within his eyes the trembling lustre of another dawn. He knew that night had come, and yet his soul was filled with light, for in that night the memory of his generous deeds shone out like stars.

What can we say? What words can solve the mystery of life, the mystery of death? What words can justly pay a tribute to the man who lived to his ideal, who spoke his honest thought, and who was turned aside neither by envy, nor hatred, nor contumely, nor slander, nor scorn, nor fear?

What words will do that life the justice that we know and feel?

A heart breaks, a man dies, a leaf falls in the far forest, a babe is born, and the great world sweeps on.

By the grave of man stands the angel of Silence.

No one can tell which is better—Life with its gleams and shadows, its thrills and pangs, its ecstasy and tears, its wreaths and thorns, its crowns, its glories and Golgothas, or Death, with its peace, its rest, its cool and placid brow that hath within no memory or fear of grief or pain.

(10) He lived for this world; if there be another, he will live for that.

But he has lived his life. We should shed no tears except the tears of gratitude. We should rejoice that he lived so long.

In Nature’s course, his time had come. The four seasons were complete in him. The Spring could never come again. The measure of his years was full.

When the day is done—when the work of a life is finished—when the gold of evening meets the dusk of night, beneath the silent stars the tired laborer should fall asleep. To outlive usefulness is a double death. “Let me not live after my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff of younger spirits.”

When the old oak is visited in vain by Spring—when light and rain no longer thrill—it is not well to stand leafless, desolate, and alone. It is better far to fall where Nature softly covers all with woven moss and creeping vine.

How little, after all, we know of what is ill or well! How little of this wondrous stream of cataracts and pools—this stream of life, that rises in a world unknown, and flows to that mysterious sea whose shore the foot of one who comes has never pressed!

How little of this life we know—this struggling ray of light ‘twixt gloom and gloom—this strip of land by verdure clad, between the unknown wastes—this throbbing moment filled with love and pain—this dream that lies between the shadowy shores of sleep and death!

We stand upon this verge of crumbling time. We love, we hope, we disappear. Again we mingle with the dust, and the “knot intrinsicate” forever falls apart.

But this we know: A noble life enriches all the world.

(11) In the drama of human life, all are actors, and no one knows his part. In this great play the scenes are shifted by unknown forces, and the commencement, plot and end are still unknown—are still unguessed. One by one the players leave the stage, and others take their places. There is no pause—the play goes on. No prompter’s voice is heard, and no one has the slightest clue to what the next scene is to be.

Will this great drama have an end? Will the curtain fall at last? Will it rise again upon some other stage? Reason says perhaps, and Hope still whispers yes.

(12) In the pulseless hush of death, silence seems more expressive, more appropriate—than speech. In the presence of the Great Mystery, the great mystery that waits to enshroud us all, we feel the uselessness of words.

But he has passed beyond the reach of praise or blame—passed to the realm of rest—to the waveless calm of perfect peace.

The storm is spent—the winds are hushed—the waves have died along the shore—the tides are still—the aching heart has ceased to beat, and within the brain all thoughts, all hopes and fears—ambitions, memories, rejoicings and regrets—all images and pictures of the world, of life, are now as though they had not been.

And yet Hope, the child of Love—the deathless, beyond the darkness sees the dawn. And we who knew and loved him, we, who now perform the last sad rites—the last that friendship can suggest—“will keep his memory green.”

(13) In youth we front the sun; we live in light without a fear, without a thought of dusk or night. We glory in excess. There is no dread of loss when all is growth and gain. With reckless hands we spend and waste and chide the flying hours for loitering by the way. The future holds the fruit of joy; the present keeps us from the feast, and so, with hurrying feet we climb the heights and upward look with eager eyes.

But when the sun begins to sink and shadows fall in front, and lengthen on the path, then falls upon the heart a sense of loss, and then we hoard the shreds and crumbs and vainly long for what was cast away

. And then with miser care we save and spread thin hands before December’s half-fed flickering flames, while through the glass of time we moaning watch the few remaining grains of sand that hasten to their end. In the gathering gloom the fires slowly die, while memory dreams of youth, and hope sometimes mistakes the glow of ashes for the coming of another morn.

If there is, beyond the veil, beyond the night called death, another world to which men carry all the failures and the triumphs of this life; if above and over all there be a God who loves the right, an honest man has naught to fear. If there be another world in which sincerity is a virtue, in which fidelity is loved and courage honored, then all is well with the dear friend whom we have lost.

But if the grave ends all; if all that was our friend is dead, the world is better for the life he lived. Beyond the tomb we cannot see. We listen, but from the lips of mystery there comes no word. Darkness and silence brooding over all. And yet, because we love we hope. Farewell! And yet again, Farewell!

And will there, sometime, be another world? We have our dream. The idea of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, beating with its countless waves against the sands and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book or of any creed.

It was born of affection. And it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness, as long as love kisses the lips of death. We have our dream!

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Sources: Dresden Edition of Ingersoll’s Complete Works Volume XII

1. BENJAMIN W PARKER (FATHER-IN-LAW) PEORIA, ILL., MAY 24, 1876.

2. A TRIBUTE TO EBON C. INGERSOLL WASHINGTON, D. C., MAY 31, 1879.

3. AT A CHILD’S GRAVE. WASHINGTON, D. C., JANUARY 8, 1882.

4. A TRIBUTE TO JOHN G. MILLS. WASHINGTON, D. C., APRIL 15, 1883.

5. A TRIBUTE TO ELIZUR WRIGHT. NEW YORK. DECEMBER 19, 1885.

6. A TRIBUTE TO MRS. IDA WHITING KNOWLES. NEW YORK, DEC, 16, 1887.

7. A TRIBUTE TO ROSCOE CONKLING. DELIVERED BEFORE THE NEW YORK STATE LEGISLATURE, AT ALBANY, N. Y, MAY 9, 1888.

8. A TRIBUTE TO RICHARD H. WHITING. NEW YORK, MAY 24. 1888.

9. A TRIBUTE TO COURTLANDT PALMER. NEW YORK, JULY 26, 1888.

10. A TRIBUTE TO HORACE SEAVER. AT PAINE HALL, BOSTON, AUGUST 25, 1889.

11. A TRIBUTE TO LAWRENCE BARRETT. AT THE BROADWAY THEATRE, NEW YORK, MARCH 22, 1891.

12. A TRIBUTE TO DR. THOMAS SETON ROBERTSON. NEW YORK SEPTEMBER 8, 1898.